MEET VERNON

The First Death Row Blogger.VERNON DOES NOT HAVE INTERNET ACCESS. If you send questions to the email adddress MeetVernon@GMail.com, I will print and mail your questions to Vernon. (Read the introduction.)

Monday, May 09, 2005

Prison Conditions

Hi Vernon,

I'm from Brazil. Here, we do not have death penalty; however, our convicts live in sub human conditions inside their own cells. Here, being sent to jail is already a death sentence…. As a convict, what would you say about the way that prisoners are treated in the USA? - Wilame Lima, Sergipe, Brazil

Wilame,

To answer your question, I think that any prison can present harsh treatment at any given time. In the history of the USA, a lot of inmates have been killed just for being leaders or just for being weak. There are men who sometimes get power stuck and those men will create situations in which blood will be spilled.

Wilame don’t be mistaken, inmates in the USA have not always had hot water and health care. Many men and women fought in the sixties to even have hot water or heat. Today in the USA, a lot of prisons are cutting work training programs. That can mean that a person has only his or her hustling jobs to look forward to once he or she is released.

Convicts that are willing to change conditions in prisons here or abroad should organize, think legally, and start writing to leaders of human rights institutions. Just remember, change comes with patience.